


Two Roads Converged in a Snowy Airport

by TheSilverQueen



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Modern: Still Have Powers, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Blizzards & Snowstorms, Don't copy to another site, First Kiss, Halloween, Happy Ending, M/M, Marvel Happily Ever After Hallmark Holiday Prompt Challenge 2019, Prompt 15, Snow on Halloween
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:46:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21923881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSilverQueen/pseuds/TheSilverQueen
Summary: Erik is cold, tired, and frustrated beyond belief that some moron has rented the last car, leaving him stranded at an airport during a Halloween snowstorm when he's supposed to be in Westchester, NY. Charles - the moron who rented the last car and who also needs to get to Westchester - offers a proposition: if Erik drives, he'll share the car.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Comments: 14
Kudos: 222
Collections: MHEA Holiday Movie Challenge 2019





	Two Roads Converged in a Snowy Airport

**Author's Note:**

> This is my contribution for the [Marvel Happily Ever After Holiday Movie Challenge](https://heamarvel.tumblr.com/holiday)! Specifically, I chose prompt 15: "Stranded at an airport at Christmastime, Character A accepts a ride from Character B, who has just rented the last car in town." However, I chose to do Halloween because I have a vivid memory of an October snowstorm during Halloween and I thought it would be funny. 
> 
> This is also my first foray into Cherik fic! I hope it proves a fruitful and enjoyable venture.
> 
> Title is inspired by Robert Frost's "[The Road Not Taken](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken)".

To say that Erik is grumpy would be an understatement. Erik is sore and exhausted and cold, and the fact that his flight was diverted and thus landed right after a snowstorm started instead of hours before it hit in the right state is not helping matters. He also hasn’t eaten in hours and he’s beyond late to his meeting, and Erik hates making a bad first impression. And the cherry on top is, of course, that due to the lateness of the hour and the snowstorm currently turning the outside white and the fact that Erik is in the wrong goddamn airport, there are no more cars available to rent.

Erik takes a deep breath and tries to control himself. The fact that the pens are starting to rattle on the desk is really not a good sign. “I’m sorry, can you please check that again?”

The attendant’s smile is incredibly strained. Erik doesn’t blame her, but he also isn’t very happy, so right now they’re both just going to be miserable. “I can, but trust me, sir, the result won’t change. The last car was rented five minutes ago. We have nothing else.”

“I need to get to Westchester by tomorrow, I have a very important meeting there.”

“Well, perhaps a car might be returned by tomorrow morning. There’s nothing else I can do for you.”

Then she excuses herself to answer a phone, and Erik gives into his anger and reforms one of the pens into a metal puddle. 

From what Google maps tells Erik, it’s about a three to four hour drive from Boston, where Erik is definitely not supposed to be, to Westchester, where Erik is supposed to be tomorrow for a noon luncheon. It was supposed to be a dinner today, but weather happened, so Erik e-mailed and thankfully got a quick response filled with mild pleasantries. Erik is quite eager to not have to reschedule again, because the Westchester job is a big one and he really doesn’t want to make his bad first impression even worse.

Erik could, of course, attempt to levitate himself and fly there, but in this weather he’d likely miss his target. He’d also likely freeze.

“Excuse me?”

Erik turns around, moving his suitcase with a gesture and a thought, and finds a man and a lot of metal attached to the voice. The man is dressed a lot more suitably than Erik, with a thick jacket, woolen hat, and sensible boots. He has a duffle bag on his lap and the weary eyes of someone who has just disembarked, and when he sees that Erik has heard him, he wheels himself closer.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but I overheard that you were trying to get to Westchester?” 

Erik gives him the side eye. Erik was a loud child, but he’s been told he’s more of a quiet and brusque adult. Either this guy has the ears of a bat or he was being nosy. “Yes. I have a meeting there. Or had. I missed it. Snowstorm.”

“Ah,” the guy says. “And you were trying to rent a car?”

“Yeah, but some moron rented the last one. So I’m stranded.”

For some reason, that makes the guy smile. He wheels himself a little closer and holds out his hand. “Hi, I’m Charles Xavier. I’m the moron who rented the last car. I’d like to make a proposition.”

Erik shakes the outstretched hand purely by habit. He’s half distracted by the feel of all of those metal pieces in the wheelchair and half amused at the guy’s wording. Usually, when Erik calls people morons they are not happy and react with yelling or punches. Erik enjoys those reactions. “You’re not offended by my words?” Erik asks.

“Hardly. I had some choice words of my own when I saw the storm, and my sister had even nastier ones when I called to let her know I was being diverted.”

Erik crosses his arms. “And your proposition?”

“Done to business already. Fair enough.” Xavier gestures to his wheelchair. “As you can see, I cannot use my legs. I had made arrangements for when I landed, but my flight was diverted, so my regular car isn’t here. However, I also need to get to a meeting in Westchester by tomorrow, and I believe your legs do work. So how about we share?”

“We share . . . the car?”

“Well, unless you have a gift for multiplying cars, yes. We both need to get to Westchester, we both need a car, and we both need each other. I think it’ll work out nicely.”

Xavier sounds so cheerful that Erik half wants to stab him. No man should sound so cheerful after a transatlantic flight.

But also. He seems to have no common sense.

Erik isn’t concerned, of course, because when your mutant gift is manipulating metal, the whole world becomes a weapon for your defense. And he has no intention of leaving Xavier in the dust. But Xavier can’t possibly know that. For all he knows, Erik could be wanted for six murders and kidnapping.

“And you aren’t worried I’ll just take the car?”

Xavier laughs and starts wheeling himself to the door, because he’s a trusting moron. “You need to have more faith in humanity, my friend.”

“We just met, how are we friends?” Erik grumbles. Then he levitates his suitcase, just to make a point, but also to see if Xavier is one of those mutant-hating or mutant-fearing humans who screams and flees. Or worse, calls for pitchforks. “And who said I was human?”

Xavier’s eyes go big and round. It’s astonishing, actually, how much it makes him look like a puppy. “You’re a mutant!” he declares in delight, like he’s made a million dollar discovery. “That’s amazing! And what – telekinesis? No, not quite, erm, metallokinesis? Or is it more related to magnetism?”

Erik quickly comes to regret revealing his mutation, and for all new reasons.

* * *

When they reach the car, Xavier digs into his pocket and throws the keys at Erik. The throw wouldn’t have made it if Erik wasn’t a mutant, so it warms Erik a little inside, to see this human so casually accepting of his gift. Erik opens the trunk and loads his suitcase and Xavier’s duffle bag in, and by the time he’s rounded the car, Xavier has shifted himself gracefully into the passenger seat.

“Goodness, you’re fast,” Xavier says.

“I could say the same. Backseat okay for the wheelchair?”

“Lots of practice,” Xavier says airily. But it’s the good kind or airiness, the kind that sees a compliment and takes it cheerfully instead of inspecting it for hidden tripwires. “And yes, that’s fine. You can use that marvelous gift of yours.”

Erik does indeed fold up wheelchair with a few twitches of his fingers. And then, just because, he opens the car does, pushes the wheelchair inside, and then closes the door all without moving. 

When Erik slides into the driver’s seat, Xavier is beaming like it’s his birthday. He’d practically talked Erik’s ear off as they walked from the terminals to the car, and Erik now knows a lot more about Xavier than possibly his own mother does: his favorite color (blue), his favorite pet (a mutt he’d taken in from the rain and refused to get rid of), his favorite past time (wandering the hillside, exploring and documenting plants), his favorite sibling (a sister named Raven, or Mystique, or whatever new name she favors, Xavier isn’t quite sure), and everything Xavier’s seen or eaten in the last week and a half.

Of course, with all of that information shared with Erik, Xavier apparently now expects Erik to share in return. 

“So, your gift! Manipulation of metal and magnetic fields?”

Erik grunts in affirmation as he starts the car and puts it into motion. He does check the mirrors out of habit, but he’s long mastered the ability to sense cars without turning his head, so within moments they’re pulling onto the main road.

“And when was your manifestation? At birth or puberty?”

Erik’s manifestation, like many mutants, is not a happy story. Usually Erik gives some trite tale of how he’d floated a toy in his nursery, something bland and safe, something that humans can think is cute and harmless and innocent. Yet something about Xavier compels him to answer truthfully. 

“Neither,” Erik says. “I was little, only five or six. I didn’t want to go inside school when my parents dropped me off. When my teachers tried to pull me inside, I dug in my feet and warped the playground.”

It had been Erik’s first experience with human screaming at any demonstration of his gift. It certainly hadn’t been his last.

“Fascinating. There’s been a theory that it isn’t really puberty that causes the manifestation so much as the experience of strong emotions. Puberty heightens them, of course, but any strong emotion will do. Trying to separate you form your parents would certainly qualify as an experience to provoke a strong emotion.” Somehow, Xavier isn’t out of breath after that; Erik half-suspects he has a mutant gift himself, like being able to breathe and talk simultaneously. “And your parents? What did they say?”

“They hugged me. They didn’t know, of course, they were human, but . . . My mother kissed me and then took me home.”

Erik isn’t exactly a professor of mutant studies, but he’s well aware of the statistics. Most mutants who manifest at puberty are thrown out of their homes into the streets, and the suicide and poverty rate is unspeakably high, since most shelters will turn away those with visible gifts. Erik knows he’s doubly lucky – that his parents accepted it, and that he has an invisible mutation.

“Your mother sounds like an amazing person,” Xavier says quietly.

“She is. She never yelled at me, no matter how many times I warped the silverware. Though she did insist that I fix it.”

Xavier smiles broadly. “And I assume that is where you learned your fine control?”

Erik hesitates. He’s never thought of it like that, despite receiving praise from every boss regarding his fine control and attention to detail, but it makes sense. Sitting at his kitchen table and practicing smoothing out lumps of twisted metal in beautifully straight forks and knives and spoons taught him patience, but it also gave him an instinctive reflex to make sure everything is perfect.

Xavier mistakes his silence for offense, apparently. “Erm, I didn’t mean anything by it,” he says hurriedly. “Just that, well, you fixed the pen at the terminal, and you opened the trunk but not by forcing it open, you moved the mechanism, and then you did the same for the car. It’s quite a groovy mutation.”

Erik blinks at Xavier, abruptly and completely derailed. Thankfully, with his gift, he can ensure they don’t crash as he stares at his companion.

“How old are you?” Erik demands. “Groovy?”

“I’m not that old. I haven’t started losing my hair yet, but lord knows it’s in my genetics. But, ah, I grew up, well. I was an only child for a long time. I spent a lot of time watching old movies and television shows.”

“Thought you had a sister.”

Xavier brightens up immediately again. It’s like watching a flower droop at night and then straighten during the day. “So you were listening!” he says triumphantly. “Sorry, I talk a lot when I’m nervous, and I was almost one hundred percent certain you were tuning me out. A lot of people do, you know.”

“I’m an architect, we can’t tune people out. If I do when I turn back around, the client will have added seven new fountains and four new bathtubs.”

“Your gift must come in handy.”

“Yes,” Erik says. There’s more than that, of course; there’s a beauty that comes with talking to a client, sorting through what they truly want and what they just think they want, and then rendering it all together in a beautiful design that can leap off the page and manifest as a real thing in the real world. But he can’t deny that being able to manipulate metal is very helpful as well.

“So what’s in Westchester for you?”

“A meeting about a job with a client.”

“Ah. You weren’t flying in for the Halloween Hunt?’

“The what,” Erik says flatly. Erik stopped trick-or-treating a long time ago, and every time ‘sexy mutant’ becomes the top costume for sale, he usually has to go reform his silverware again. Needless to say, Halloween does not have positive associations for him. 

“The Halloween Hunt!” Xavier exclaims enthusiastically. “It’s an all inclusive trick-or-treat, complete with a scavenger hunt on the grounds of the school.”

“All inclusive meaning . . .”

“Well, mostly it’s for mutants,” Xavier confesses. “But sometimes human children join us as well. It helps teach tolerance. And it’s fun.”

Erik side eyes Xavier again. He has nothing against those who preach a peaceful coexistence between humans and mutants – Erik, after all, peacefully coexists with his coworkers and his human parents – but he does harbor some misgivings about it. It’s one thing to be idealistic; it’s another to be foolish. And Erik is well aware that usually, when humanity finds something scary or different or other, they go and lock it up instead of trying to make nice. After all, most of Erik’s coworkers have no idea he’s a mutant.

Xavier notices. “You don’t believe in tolerance?”

“I believe it is best to prepare for the inevitable fight.”

“Because mutants are superior?”

“Because humans will one day take offense at our superiority,” Erik corrects. “More and more of my kind are being born every day. One day, we’re going to be accused of building an army, and then we’ll be in trouble.”

“Children are not an army.”

“The humans don’t see my kind as children. They see us as mindless ravaging killers.”

“Your mother didn’t,” Xavier points out quietly.

“She is an exception. And a rare one.”

“Well then,” Xavier says, “why shouldn’t we go about making new exceptions? Spreading awareness, as it were. Mutants possess gifts that can lift up both mutantkind and humankind. We both live in the same world together, after all. We can walk forward into the future together, and leave a better world for our children, mutant and human.”

The words sound rehearsed and a bit tired, but Xavier somehow manages to deliver them with a boundless energy, like he’s just let loose a flood of cute puppies and is urging others to come watch and play. It makes Erik want to believe, want to follow, want to help, even though inside his instinct is to roll his eyes at the idealism that soaks through every single eager syllable. It might be a sad bed for Erik, one where he’s constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the yelling and hunting and pitchfork-gathering to begin, for the day when the world burns and mutants huddle in caves and shadows, but better to have a sad bed out of reach than a comfortable one where the humans might reach in at any time and shoot him.

So Erik just says, “You really believe that, huh?”

Xavier smiles at him, luminous in the darkness. “We all have to believe in something, Erik.”

“If you say so . . . Charles.”

It’s a concession and Charles knows it, but thankfully he doesn’t call Erik out on it.

* * *

By mutual unspoken agreement, they stop once it gets so dark that the flurrying snowflakes make the road too hazardous to traverse in the dark. They find a small little hotel, with a yawning receptionist and a lobby with three pumpkins and an empty candy basket. Charles pays while Erik is distracted bringing in the luggage, like the little sneak he is, and so Erik is blissfully unaware that the only available room is a single until he opens the door and is greeted with an enormous king size bed that practically swallows the entire room.

“Erik? What’s wrong?”

Erik clears his throat. “Was no other room available?”

Charles peers around Erik, and then his tone takes on that hurried, nervous edge again. “Um, yes, so apparently they were booked almost to capacity. This was the last room.”

Erik moves aside so Charles can wheel himself in, and then he continues looking around. At least the suite isn’t unbearably small for two people – there’s a handicap bathroom and shower, a second room containing a chairs and a desk and a cabinet with a coffeepot and a fridge, and the bedroom has a television and a nice window. But there isn’t any kind of sofa or fold out couch, so unless Erik wants to slouch in a chair or make a nest of pillows on the floor, there is only one option for sleep. 

Charles catches him looking around. “We’re both adults, we can share the bed. It’s certainly large enough.” He pauses, and then his tone takes on a mischievous edge. “I’m told that I kick an awful lot less in my sleep now.”

Erik laughs despite him, caught off guard. “Fair enough.”

Dinner is instant noodles purchased from the store downstairs and heated with water from the coffeepot, although when Erik returns with the bowls ready and hot, he finds Charles has conquered the bed and is steadily sorting an enormous bag of candy into separate piles.

“What’s this?”

“Candy,” Charles says.

Erik sets his bowl on the table on his side of the bed and then gently pushes the other bowl through the air to land on the dresser next to Charles’s side. “Yes, I can see that. What are you doing?”

“Well, I’d like to share some candy with you, but I don’t want to eat everything, you know. I need to save some for the children, even though we’re definitely going to miss Halloween.”

Erik pauses with a noodle halfway to his face. He hadn’t thought much of Charles’s comment about not kicking in his sleep, but now that he’s mentioned children . . . “And what would your wife think of you sharing candy with a stranger you just met?” he asks, half teasing, half curious about what reaction he’ll get.

Charles nearly flails his way off the bed; Erik has to very quickly reach out and seize his shirt.

“I don’t have a wife!” Charles says. “Just, well. A lot of children. I have a big house. It seemed a shame not to share it with those less fortunate.”

“Ah,” Erik says blandly. There’s a warmth in his chest that has nothing to do with Charles being kind, but Erik doesn’t quite know how to verbalize it. Perhaps it is strange to find that someone like Charles – someone kind and thoughtful and generous – hasn’t been snatched up by some enterprising yet also very lucky person. 

They eat noodles and then Erik goes and makes tea for Charles, since instant coffee is apparently an affront to his British sensibilities, and then they have candy for dessert. Charles comes out triumphant in the contest of the fastest yet neatest unwrapper of candy, but Erik dominates when it comes to balling up the wrappers and slinging them into the trashcan. He only cheats once to twitch the metal trash can over, although Charles playfully accuses him of cheating for every shot. 

Afterwards, when the sugar rush fades away and Charles starts yawning, Erik turns off the television. 

“I think we’d better sleep,” he says. “Or, at least, I need to. We’ve still got a long ride ahead tomorrow to reach Westchester.”

“But of course! I’ll have to be well rested for my meeting.”

Slipping under the covers next to another warm body is a strange experience for Erik. He hasn’t shared a bed with anyone in a long time, not since he broke up with Magda. And yet Charles is as polite and pleasant as ever, staying to his side and not rustling all about. In fact, after a few moments, his breathing evens out and he apparently drops off right into sleep.

Erik sighs and turns off the light for him. Because apparently he’s helpless to Charles’s charms now.

* * *

When Erik wakes up, he is _freezing_. He usually doesn’t get cold, but when he exhales his breath steams into the air, and he quickly realizes that the reason he woke up is because Charles is curled against his side, shivering ever so faintly and teeth chattering like ice cubes rattling in an empty glass.

“Charles?”

“Oh, I’m so sorry, I just – I was trying not to wake you up. I’m just cold.”

Erik squints through the darkness at the thermometer. He can’t see very well in the darkness, but when he reaches out with his metal-sense, he can tell that the needle is far lower than it was hours ago when they fell asleep. Clearly, something is very wrong.

“I think we’ve lost power,” Charles whispers. “When I checked my cellphone for the time, it wasn’t charging, and I saw you plugged it in after I went to sleep.”

Erik slips out of the bed, carefully bundling it around Charles to keep in his body heat. The floor is like ice, and Erik curses under his breath as he hops as quickly as he can into his shoes, not even bothering to put on socks. After that he flicks open the tiny closet and pulls down the rest of the spare blankets, piling them on the bed as a grateful Charles nestles in. Finally, he shrugs into his coat, because his sweater, while cuddly and soft, is not enough against the cold.

“I’m going to ask downstairs,” Erik says. “Stay here.”

The halls are quiet, like an abandoned ghost town. Erik puts one hand in his pocket, reassured at the feeling of a metal pen, and then softly makes his way down to the lobby.

The lobby is definitely not quiet. A bunch of other guests are there, some wrapped in blankets and others clad in coats, but from the raised voices Erik can quickly ascertain that the hotel has lost power, thanks to the snowstorm, and no one knows when or if it will come back on. Even cellphone service is a bit of a hit or miss, apparently.

Erik slinks back upstairs, curiosity satisfied. 

“Power is out,” Erik confirms when he’s safely back into their room. He shuts the door and then turns the lock, warping it just a little as is his habit. “Due to the snowstorm. No ETA on having it fixed.”

Charles groans piteously from his nest of blankets. “First it delays my plane, and then it ruins my Halloween, and now we have no power? Is there even a god.”

Amused, Erik slides off his coat and slips back into bed. Then, one second thought, he calls their jackets over to them, arranging them using the zippers to cover the blanket nest Charles has so industriously arranged.

“Goodness, you’re warm,” Charles murmurs. 

Erik sighs and lets Charles snuggle in close. “Come here. The car is rented in your name, after all. It’d be a shame to let you freeze.”

The curls on Charles’s head are very, very soft. When Erik presses his nose into them, he smells the faint scent of citrus shampoo. Charles’s clothes are also soft, worn through constant washed and definitely loved. Everything about Charles seems soft, except Erik knows better than most that the ones who appear softer usually have a diamond armor hiding underneath the soft exterior. 

After all, Erik’s mother is kind and soft, and yet she’d never yielded when raising Erik. 

“Do you really believe our two kinds can coexist?” Erik asks, because this kind of cold darkness is the perfect kind for dark secrets and whispered confessions.

“We’re all the same kind, in the end,” Charles says. “We are born, we live, and we die. No mutant would exist without a human, and some humans would not exist without mutants. Why do we need to conquer the world? It’s not like we have another to send the humans. And mutants will continue to be born to human parents. It’s better that we accept each other now than start a fight that will bring nothing but tragedy to us all.” 

“I know some humans who might disagree.”

“And I know some mutants who might disagree. That doesn’t mean we ought to stop striving for a better world. We have a chance to be the better men.”

Erik considers it. It’s a very pretty picture, and Erik still has doubts, and yet there is that saying: _Plan for the worst, and hope for the best_. Here, in the darkness, Erik can entertain that kind of hope for a brighter future, just like he imagines his mother must have when she saw him manifest.

“I think you already are the better man, Charles,” Erik admits.

Charles’s eloquent response is a snore. 

Erik just sighs and settles back into bed. Perhaps some confessions are best unheard.

* * *

The next day is bright and cold. The snow, at least, has stopped falling, and when Erik peers out the window he sees that the plows have come and gone, so the roads are at least less of a life or death gamble. The hotel still has no power, so they are packed and ready to leave in record time. When they pull out of the parking lot, Charles is nursing his second cup of tea.

“How on earth you drink that and yet can fall asleep in three seconds is beyond me,” Erik says.

“When you have a gaggle of children underfoot, you can fall asleep through anything,” Charles replies. “Exhaustion was a firm teacher.”

“How many children do you have again?”

“Oh, only about twenty or thirty. We didn’t want to overdo it this first couple of years.”

Erik tries to imagine being in a house, even a large one, with twenty or thirty screaming children running about. He fails. 

“They are the future,” Charles says, catching the look on his face. “I find it . . . refreshing. To watch them grow and learn and start to move into the world.”

“I think I would find it extremely annoying.”

“You weren’t the why, why, why kind of child, were you?”

“Silent as a statute,” Erik confirms. He shoots Charles a glance. “Let me guess. You were the why, why, why kind of child.”

“I drove my nannies nuts,” Charles agrees cheerfully. “Thankfully, I learned to read at a young age, and my father had a rather large library. I had the run of it all through childhood. I probably spent more time in their reading than I did outside playing. At least, until Raven came along anyways. Then she was always dragging me outside.”

Erik bites his tongue. It sounds like a lonely life, being ensconced in libraries with only nannies to bring food or put him to bed. Erik didn’t have very many friends as a child, but his mother was always willing to participate in his games and talk to him, or even just listen.

Maybe Charles had other reasons for filling his childhood home with children.

“Sounds lonely,” is all Erik says. “But I’m glad you had Raven.”

“Yes, I’m glad I had Raven too. She helped me become slightly less obnoxious.”

“Yet she still lets you out of the house saying things like ‘groovy’.”

“Alas, there are some things even Raven gives up on.”

After that, the conversation turns to childhood amusements. Erik learns that Charles had lessons in horseback riding, ballroom dancing, and chess, which he finds hilarious, mostly because Charles confides that he was rubbish at the first two because he had terrible coordination and two left feet. The chess part is interesting though, because Charles turns out to have memorized a chess board, and so they start playing chess in between trading thoughts.

Erik is just about to declare checkmate when Charles abruptly leans forward and exclaims, “Oh, take a left! We’re almost there.”

Erik obeys on instinct, and they end up turning down a very long, long road that appears to have no end. There is only one thing on the left: a large metal gate inscribed with a plaque. Charles’s school, apparently. 

Seeing as Erik had completely forgotten about the fact that he and Charles were going to separate places, he’s very grateful that his mutation allows for him to drive despite the unpleasant shock sinking into his stomach. Charles is going to get out of the car very soon. Charles is going to get out of the car and leave him, and Erik might not ever see him again. Might not be able to see that gorgeous smile, argue with that keen mind, bask in the sunlight of that idealistic dream. It’s . . . disheartening.

The car rolls to a stop. “Thank you for the ride,” Charles says brightly, pushing the door open. “I do hope your job goes well, Erik. If you have time, you ought to come calling.”

Erik moves the wheelchair out of the backseat and then sends the duffle bag floating along after it so that Charles can catch it after he settles into his chair. “Come calling? I think you were truly born in the wrong time period, Charles.”

“Raven’s said much the same. I think you two would get along well.” He pauses. “Maybe too well. Good-bye, Erik.”

“Good-bye,” Erik echoes.

He makes it all the way outside of the gates before he has to put the car in park and think seriously about what he is doing with his life, because half of him wants to turn around and head right back into the gate and spend as long as he can with Charles, soaking up his warmth and softness and kindness. The other half wants to run far, far away, so that there he can harden himself against that kind of weakness, that kind of temptation.

Erik bites his lip, savoring the clarity of pain and anger, and then he pulls up his e-mail and searches for the address for the Institute of Gifted Youngsters. They’d sent him several e-mails with the address once he’d accepted the job.

That done, he puts it into the GPS and waits for directions.

“Make a U-turn,” the GPS chirps helpfully.

Erik blinks. Then he checks that the address is correct and hits refresh.

“Make a U-turn,” the GPS repeats.

Erik makes a U-turn.

“The destination is on your left. Arriving in . . . 1 minute.”

Erik squints at the plaque next to the enormous wrought iron gate. It’s hard to make it out, because the plaque is rather high, but after a moment, he realizes that the words carved into it read _Institute for Gifted Youngsters_.

Erik goes back through the gate.

* * *

Just as Charles said, there are indeed twenty to thirty screaming children running about. Thankfully, there are also a handful of adults, one of whom directs him towards the headmaster’s office at the end of the hallway, even though she also gives him a very suspicious eye that makes Erik wonder if she’s a telepath.

The plaque on the door, thankfully, does not read “Charles Xavier.” Erik breathes a sigh of relief and knocks.

He takes a step back when it opens, mostly because the person who answer his knock is covered from head to toe in bright blue fur. He is wearing clothes, and even has black-rimmed eyeglasses, but it’s definitely fur and hair peeking out from the seams of his clothing.

“Can I help you?” he says politely.

Erik clears his throat. “Erik Lehnsherr. I’m the architect? Hired to do an addition for the school.”

“Oh! Yes, please come in.”

The office is so cluttered with paper and books that Erik almost twitches with the need to organize it. He’s not particularly clean by nature, but his gift makes it very easy to tidy up, and so he’s more used to seeing neat and tidy places than messy ones. 

“Sorry about the mess. I’m Hank McCoy, I’m the new headmaster. We, uh, we asked for your help because we were planning on expanding the school. More mutants are being found all the time, after all. And we were told you didn’t object to mutants?”

McCoy’s voice goes up at the end, like a question. Erik raises an eyebrow, and then he flicks a finger and shuts the door with his gift.

“Hard to object to myself,” he says dryly.

McCoy breathes out a long sigh. “Oh thank goodness. We’ve gone through two architects already.”

“How big of an addition are you planning?”

“Er. Well, here’s the thing – let me, uh, let me get the person who’s been handling that. He knows more of the details than me.”

McCoy then hurries out of the door, leaving Erik staring in his wake.

When he returns, Erik at first doesn’t see anyone behind him, and he thinks he’s just being paranoid. But then he feels the particular squeaky metal-sense of a very familiar wheelchair, and then Charles is in the doorway, a welcoming smile on his face that freezes before growing even wider when he registers who is sitting in the office.

“Erik! You should have told me your job was for my school!”

“You never mentioned the school’s name,” Erik points out.

“Oh, yes. Sorry, we’ve only recently changed the name, and I’m still not used to it being, well, not my school. Well. It’s still my school. But not my name. Oh, you know what I mean.”

The warmth that had died down to embers when Erik had driven away bereft of Charles slowly come to life again, spreading throughout his chest and into his limbs. It was one thing to see that Charles was accepting of mutants; it’s quite another to know that he is running a school for mutants, to shelter their kind and teach them and give them a home. Erik certainly won’t complain about more time spent in Charles’s sunny presence.

“So what kind of plans do you have for an expansion?”

“Well, quite honestly, a lot, but I am not an architect,” Charles says. “But we desperately need more room, because we have lots of rooms for dormitories but not really enough for teaching. We need more specialized areas to train, you see.”

“I’m going to need a little more information than that, Charles.”

“Hmm.” Charles lifts his hand and wriggles his fingers. “Do you mind? I can show you far more effectively than I can explain it. Or draw it; my drawings leave much to be desired.”

Erik looks from Charles’s fingers to his face and then back to his fingers. “I don’t follow?”

“Oh, did I forget to say? I’m a telepath.”

Erik opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again. “No,” he says. “You definitely forgot.”

“My apologies,” Charles says sheepishly. “I promise I haven’t been reading your mind. I usually try to keep my distance, so it’s more of an . . . awareness. Like hearing birds in the morning. I know minds are near, but I try not to listen too closely. Do you mind?”

After Charles’s wholesale and eager acceptance of his gift, it seems rather rude not to do the same.

“Just try to wander into any dark secrets.”

“I’ll do my best.”

* * *

Hank gets bored and wanders off about two hours into the discussion. That is perfectly fine with Erik, since Charles is the one who clearly has the vision about what he wants and what he needs, even though Erik has to gently bring him down to ground because, honestly, there are limits to what even Erik’s gift can accomplish.

“But why can’t we – ”

“No, Charles. Not unless you’ve got a mutant who can compress space and time.”

Charles pouts. “But it would be so groovy. The children would love it.”

“I bet they’d love a functioning room more than a broken one,” Erik says dryly. “And besides – ”

The door slams open, interrupting Erik mid-word. He warps the pen in his hand again, but thankfully Charles is too busy opening his arms to the child bursting in to notice Erik’s accidental destruction of his pen.

“You said you’d come watch us!” the child pouts. 

“Ah, yes, I will. I just got a bit sidetracked.” Charles looks up. “Erik, do you mind if we carry on later? It’s just, the children delayed the Halloween scavenger hunt because of the snow, and usually I always watch. Just to make sure no one is without an audience,” he says, tickling the girl’s nose so that she giggles.

Erik shrugs, rolling up the plans. “They’ll keep.” 

“Excellent. Would you like to come?”

The girl and Charles have the exact same puppy dog pleading eyes. Erik caves, because he’s helpless to just Charles, never mind Charles twice over.

“Wonderful! Follow me.”

Erik had already seen how big the grounds were as he was driving up, but when they walk – or in Charles’s case, roll – into the wide open patio next to the kitchen, it truly sinks in as he sees all of the light strung into the trees and the children moving in the distance, everyone carrying pillow cases or plastic pumpkins to collect candy that the adults have apparently squirreled away for a scavenger hunt to replace a trick or treat.

Another child comes running up when he sees Charles and Erik appear. He’s dressed like a knight, complete with a shiny, although fake, sword. He beams and present Charles with a tiara. It’s a real one, too; Erik can feel the metal.

“You have to be the princess!” he says.

“But of course I am,” Charles says, accepting the tiara with grace. “Thank you very much for reminding me, my dear. Now off you go! Otherwise you’ll miss out on the candy.”

Afterwards, he turns to Erik. “Bit of a tradition. The judge who decides the winner is the princess who wears the tiara.”

“Not the queen or king?”

“Well, when Raven wore the tiara she was a princess,” Charles explains, settling the tiara amongst his curls with the steadiness of a long established habit. “And the children saw the photo in the album and ran with it. So now, the judge is always a princess.”

“I’m guessing you usually are the judge?”

“Well, I’d never deny my friends the opportunity to hunt for candy. Hank and the others have had to grow up quite fast.”

Yet Charles speaks without a hint of bitterness. Erik bets that Charles would love to end up roaming the grounds, teasing children and picking up packets of candy, but he stays here and remains the judge so that others may play. It’s Charles in a nutshell, he’s beginning to realize.

Erik pulls a chair over and sits down. “You’re a good man, Charles.”

“I do try.”

The shouts of the children echo across the grounds as the sun sets. Soon the only sources of light are the jack-o’-lanterns dotting the walkways, the lamps on the basketball court, and a few solar lights here and there on grounds. The air grows chilly, and yet Charles remains where he is, smiling as he watches the children run and scream and frolic, so Erik rolls his eyes and goes off to retrieve a blanket.

“Thank you,” Charles says quietly when Erik returns to drape it around him.

He looks ethereal, lit by the moon glinting off his tiara and the flickering flames of the jack-o’-lanterns. Erik wants to cuddle him close and bottle up his energy, to keep himself warm on cold days and remembering why it’s important to forge ahead and imagine a bright future.

Erik puts a hand on his armrest. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” Charles replies, lips twisting in a wry smile.

“I don’t suppose the big boss of the school has rules against an architect and a professor being . . . close.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t. After all, the big boss got to know the architect very well. He’s a very nice man, and very warm. Metaphorically and physically.”

And, well, Erik has to kiss him for that.

He’s almost there, too, when a shout makes them both start.

“Hey! No influencing the princess! We want im-impar-impa – fair judging!”

“I’m not participating in the scavenger hunt, you nosy brats,” Erik calls back.

“Oh,” come a clamor of voices. In the distance, Erik can see a group disperse as the children wander away, apparently satisfied with his response.

When he looks back, Charles’s shoulders are shaking with suppressed laughs. “Erik, you cannot call my children nosy brats.”

“They might as well get used to it, I’m going to be here a while.”

“It would be nice to have someone to play chess with,” Charles says. “Someone who actually can play, anyways. Hank always gets too distracted by lab results and Raven is, bless her, quite fed up with playing chess with me.”

“Only play chess with?” Erik teases, fingers edging along Charles’s collar.

“Well, unless you have other ideas – mhm!”

Kissing Charles, it turns out, is just as wonderful as arguing with him. The warmth inside of Erik multiples until it’s a roaring fire, and Erik feels as brave as a man standing on the edge of a precipice who knows both that he has someone to catch him and that the fall will be a glorious adventure. He’s never met anyone like Charles before, kindness and grace matched with inner strength and unyielding faith. But he already knows he’d be a fool to let Charles slip out of his grasp a second time.

When they separate, Charles is red-faced and panting. “Excellent idea,” he says faintly, beaming. “I think we should do that a lot, in addition to playing chess.”

“Works for me,” Erik says.

FINIS

* * *

Achievements earned as part of the Holiday Movie Challenge 2019. Click [here](https://heamarvel.tumblr.com/holiday) for more info!

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: And then Erik moves in, and Charles and Erik get married, and they live happily ever after. (Also the word count was completely unintentional but very hilarious to me.)
> 
> Huge thanks to the mods of HEA Marvel for putting together such a great event and for being welcoming to all kinds of Marvel fans! If you haven't already, I'd highly recommended checking them out on [Tumblr](https://heamarvel.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter](https://twitter.com/heamarvel), and checking out the rest of the works in the [AO3 collection](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/MHEA_Holiday_Movie_2019).
> 
> Find me @ Telegram as TheSilverQueen : [Pillowfort as TheSilverQueen](https://www.pillowfort.social/thesilverqueen) : [Tumblr as thesilverqueenlady](http://thesilverqueenlady.tumblr.com) : [Twitter as silverqueenlady](https://twitter.com/silverqueenlady) : [NewTumbl as thesilverqueen](https://thesilverqueen.newtumbl.com/) : [Dreamwidth as thesilverqueenlady](https://thesilverqueenlady.dreamwidth.org/)


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